


lazy afternoons

by gaytimetraveller



Series: soriku week 2018 [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Fluff, M/M, kairi and lea are there briefly i dont think enough to tag em
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 03:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16905126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytimetraveller/pseuds/gaytimetraveller
Summary: They were well past due for a break, if Sora did say so himself. A day off was exactly what they both needed, and a day off at the beach was one better.(soriku week day 1)





	lazy afternoons

**Author's Note:**

> its soriku week time aka im about to go ham this was supposed to be like 500 words but haha oops anyways heres day 1 (free day)

They were well past due for a break, if Sora did say so himself. Riku never would have outwardly agreed with him, if only for the sake of trying to seem more serious, or maybe for the sake of teasing Sora, but to himself he would admit they deserved a break. Either way, Sora had managed to convince (endlessly bug) Yen Sid that they needed a day or two off.

Of course, there was a bit of a catch in that only the two of them could have a day off from training, which had Kairi and Lea complaining. Unfortunately they just weren’t as effective as Sora’s hassling. All they got for their troubles was being sent on a mission on the weekend. Sora had tried to make a case for Kairi, but had given up upon the threat of his own day off being cancelled.

So, early Saturday morning saw Sora bounding down the steps of the Mysterious Tower, a bag in over his shoulder and Riku in tow behind him, with Kairi and Lea further behind the two of them, grumbling as they went. The boys bid goodbye to the other two as they headed off, Sora practically dragging Riku to Twilight Town.

They hit the streets, eternal sunset shining over both of them as Sora held tight to Riku’s hand in pulling him along. “Where are we headed anyways?” Riku yawned. Sora abruptly stopped, and motioned to himself with one eyebrow raised, as if it was all incredibly obvious.

“The beach! Duh!” Sora motioned to his mismatched flip flops and the khaki shorts Riku had watched him dig out of a closet in the Mysterious Tower. Who they belonged to, neither was sure, but they’d appeared nonetheless and no one had come to take them. Riku was in a nearly matching navy pair they’d found along the way.

Riku snorted. He should’ve known. Sora fished a pair of sunglasses out of one of his pockets, and plopped them on Riku’s head with a grin. It took him a moment to notice they were in the shape of hearts, and Sora’s own were as well. Sora flicked on his glasses and marched off towards the train.

Ever the optimist, and ever the islander, of course Sora was taking them to the beach in silly sunglasses and mystery khakis. Of course. It was an entirely Sora thing to do.

For the entire train ride over, Sora kicked his legs back and forth, looking out the windows and occasionally meandering around the car with a restlessness that seemed a little more than usual. Riku didn’t say anything, not sure if he wanted to find out what was behind this particular quirk. Sora was his best friend, and practically an open book to him, but...well. There’d always been strange quirks with Sora.

When the train started to slow, Sora practically leaped out of the seat he’d been fidgeting in, and Riku more casually followed behind him as he practically sprinted out onto the beach. And, well, it was certainly a beach. It was no Destiny Islands, but nothing had ever been quite like home. It was different anyways, bathed in the same eternal twilight that was a constant in this world, with a thousand other tiny differences either of the boys could’ve spent all day pointing out.

Still, the sun was bright and the sand was hot and Sora was practically twirling around, arms flung wide and grin ear to ear. Once Riku had caught up, he pulled a blanket out of his bag, set it down along with the bag, and haphazardly kicked off his sandals. As the two of them smoothed out the blanket Riku noted it looked a little suspiciously like one of the extra sets of bedsheets from the tower.

Once, Sora would’ve taken off down to the water near instantly regardless of his mismatched sandals and tacky sunglasses. And that wasn’t to say that he wouldn’t do that kind of thing again, given the opportunity. The problem was more that since their whole fiasco with the Mark of Mastery exam, things had seemed like they never stopped. The fighting was endless, the training was endless, the missions were endless, and yet they never seemed to get anywhere. It was tiring.

It didn’t help that Sora had practically been up with the dawn that morning, throwing things together for their day off, off digging through more closets to find the tacky patterned t-shirt he had on. (Things they were looking for tended to appear in the tower, just mostly never in the most convenient places.) On the other hand, Riku had barely slept at all, after having spent most of the night unable to sleep and then having Sora startle him awake and aware around sunrise.

They were tired. Completely worn out, exhausted, probably overworked. As Sora would say, well overdue for a break. By all rights, Kairi should’ve gotten a day off too, but Kairi had years of training to catch up on, she had as high stakes as the rest of them without the years of practice.

Things were wearing them down, all of them, and nowhere was it more obvious (at least to Riku) than Sora. He practically had the weight of the worlds on his shoulders now. Not everyone seemed to notice, but here it was obvious. Most days, Sora would have taken off across the beach, spirited as ever. But this day, he seemed a bit worn out already. He practically flopped on top of Riku once Riku had leisurely sat down on their blanket.

Riku let himself fall back with a huff, and that left the two of them laying in the eternally setting sun, Sora’s limbs thrown halfway over Riku, or maybe Riku was the one halfway under Sora.

“Don’t tell me you brought us out here just to take a nap,” Riku teased, voice low and light.

Sora snorted. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, leaning over Riku. He flipped the other’s sunglasses down off of his forehead and onto his face with a grin. “Maybe. Maybe I did.”

He giggled a little, and Riku rolled his eyes. “Something only a sap like you would do.”

“Maybe!” Sora practically collapsed back down, this time landing even more on top of Riku, basically face down on his chest. Riku breathed a laugh and threw an arm over him.

Neither bothered keeping track of how long they stayed that way, sprawled out under a low sun and near cloudless sky, the nostalgically familiar feeling of sand below and limitless sky above. Maybe, despite Riku’s teasing, a nice peaceful nap was what they both needed. It had been too long, far too long since they’d had time like this, time for themselves, time to relax.

Predictably, Sora drifted off first, slightly shifting and murmuring in his sleep as he had since they were kids. Years and years ago Riku had wondered what he was saying, what he was dreaming, but these days he didn’t much have to wonder. His whole dream eater deal had been one thing they’d both forgotten about in the chaos of the exam, something they’d both vaguely thought would be left behind with it. Still, many of his dreams evaded Riku; it wasn’t like he had to do anything about them if they weren’t nightmares.

One hand ghosted vague patterns over Sora’s back, and he sighed contently, mumbling nonsense words as he always had. When they were kids, for some reason he’d thought it was funny to ask Sora about the things he said in his sleep, not that Sora ever remembered any of it. None of it had ever made any sense anyways. He’d long since accepted that it was all nonsense.

Riku floated comfortably somewhere between being asleep and awake when Sora slowly sat up, his ever-so-spiky hair tickling across Riku’s neck along the way. He stretched his arms out with a yawn, and Riku lazily sat up beside him.

Sora looked at him and giggled a little. He shook his head when Riku raised an eyebrow, and still didn’t say a word when he leaned over to reach for his bag. He pulled out a little cooler with a big smile, “I found a little cooler the other day, so I took ice cream.” He cracked it open and pulled out not the expected ice cream bars, but ice cream sandwiches.

“No sea salt ice cream?”

Sora shrugged. “I could’ve picked up some in Twilight Town, but honestly? I don’t like the taste all that much,” he passed one ice cream sandwich to Riku, and ripped open his own. “I found these in the kitchen in the tower, so we might as well!”

The two of them leisurely munched through the small pile of ice cream bars Sora had provided, throwing the spare wrappers back into the cooler.

“Mm,” Sora hummed. He closed the cooler back up and threw it back in his bag. “I wish Kairi could’ve come today,”

Riku simply nodded, and Sora moved to sit closer next to him, leaning his head on the other’s shoulder.

“I bet she’d like this beach,” Riku said quietly. “It’s...nice. It’s warm.”

“Mmhm, it’s comfy. She’d really like it. But, this is nice too.”

For a little while, the two of them sat there, watching the sun set, or really the illusion of it setting as it never moved far from it’s low place in the sky. It was easy to lose track of time like that.

Eventually the two of them started to stand up and pack up, figuring it must have been somewhere in the afternoon seeing as they couldn’t tell by the sky. They laughed over the amount of sand in what were most definitely their extra sheets, Sora finally noticed that his sandals were mismatched, and Riku put his new tacky sunglasses in a pocket. They ambled back up to the train, a little heat dazed and giggly, and nearly tripping over their own feet.

On the trip back, Sora was more subdued. They both were, they were warm and relaxed and maybe refreshed but maybe a bit drowsy too. When they got back to Twilight Town, Sora looked over at Riku and laughed with a bit of a sheepish smile.

“Hey, Riku?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember how you burn really easily?”

Riku froze, and then sighed. “You let me get heart-shaped sunburns, didn’t you,” it was more a statement than a question.

Sora’s smile turned far more definitively sheepish, maybe a touch mischievous. “Mmm, maybe,”

When they got back to the Mysterious Tower, after a detour of an hour or two through Twilight Town of course, they were both content, heart-shaped sunburns or not. They both waved seeing Lea and Kairi already sitting on the steps, Sora more enthusiastically as always. The four of them walked back in together, laughing and joking, with Kairi recounting their little daily mission and flexing one arm to show off what muscle she’d gained, and Lea laughed along and gently elbowing the others. Sora and Riku strayed a little behind, hands clasped loosely between them.

It was a lazy afternoon, and the best kind of day off.


End file.
